Are Consumers Ditching Their Tablets For PCs?

Intel's latest financial figures released recently paint a rather rosy picture not just for the company as a whole, but for PC's too. The humble personal computer has seen sales nose-dive during the last six years of financial problems, but sales of other devices, namely tablets and smartphones, have been buoyant.

So what figures does Intel have to shout about? Perhaps the key figure, and it's a record, is that for the first time it has shipped more than 100 million microprocessors in a single quarter. More importantly, this figure includes a 9 % increases in its PC Client Group revenue year-on-year - actually higher than the overall percentage revenue increase for the company as a whole of 8 %. Of course, its processors are in Apple's Macs, iMacs and Macbooks too, not just PC's and laptops.

In contrast, the last few years have seen the biggest falls in quarterly sales of PCs and laptops ever. The death of the PC has been widely predicted too, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Even gaming is alive and healthy on the PC thanks to exclusive titles and MMO games such as World of Warcraft, with other genres proving strong and is easily a match for consoles in terms of users and revenue overall.

The poor sales figures of recent years are due to numerous reasons though. Firstly, while consumers have clearly switched from PCs and laptops to tablets, their reasons for doing so aren't just down to portability. Tablets are generally cheaper than mid-range and high-end laptops and in tough financial times, it makes absolute sense to cut outgoings. When a tablet does most things a PC can do but is cheaper and more compact, it's small wonder that when upgrade time came, consumers opted for an iPad or Nexus 7 instead.

But there's one downside to tablets; they're great for consuming content and for the most part with sharing it too, however, typing and editing everything from word documents to photos and videos are still tasks that can be achieved faster and in greater levels of detail on a PC. Several people I know were actually surprised when after a year or so of using a tablet instead of a PC, they returned to a keyboard and mouse to find certain tasks significantly could be carried out far more efficiently, despite one of them owning a wireless keyboard for their tablet too.

The bolstered sales figures actually paint several rosy pictures for Intel and the PC. Firstly, the 100 million figure means the market is still growing, although it admittedly includes servers and Intel-powered tablets too, but as I've already stated, PC sales have grown significantly as well. The increased revenue means that the industry is still profitable too. That said, something that was widely-predicted was a rebound in sales following the falls of recent years although many claimed it was a permanent decline. This has turned out not to be the case and the rebound is perhaps even more substantial than many predicted - possibly even boosted by people buying a new PC whilst also owning a tablet, or maybe even ditching their tablet altogether.

Tablet sales, particularly for Apple's iPad, are falling too. In its first year on sale, the iPad found homes with 18 million people, preceding a meteoric rise to 225 million in just four years. After this, though, they have steadily declined. Keeping pace with those initial mega sales was never going to continue for long, but Apple looks set to report further declines in iPad sales this month. There are plenty of reasons to consider a PC or Mac over tablets too, at least for home use. Displays are quickly becoming the new frontier, with 4K and even 5K on Apple's new iMac, offering incredible detail and sharpness, while the likes of Dell and LG have recently released super-wide ultra high resolution monitors that look to be incredible for immersive gaming too. There's also the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, which has been almost entirely PC-based, and PC's are more power-efficient than ever.

The rest of this year and indeed 2015 will be an interesting time for both the PC and tablet but Intel is certainly sitting happy on some healthy sales figures that will likely allow many PC manufacturers to breath a sigh of relief too. Have you considered returning to the PC recently? Perhaps you own a PC and tablet? Do let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter - @antonyleather